Hannity returns fire on Scarborough: 'A prop for Washington insiders'

7/23/13 7:54 AM EDT

Fox News host Sean Hannity returned fire on MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on Monday night after the latter accused him of using Trayvon Martin's death to "gin up ratings."

“It’s not really worth responding to liberal Joe and his under 400,000 viewers or whatever he has," Hannity said on Fox News. "His radio show failed, his TV show is failing, he has kind of sold his soul, you know, on a liberal network, and he attacks conservative and is used by a prop by his insider Washington pals to attack conservatives."

On Monday's edition of Morning Joe, Scarborough, a self-described moderate conservative, lit into Hannity for having implied that the late Trayvon Martin "had it coming" because he had marijuana in his system at the time of his death.

"It seems we keep hearing that Trayvon had it coming because he had pot in his system: I keep hearing this from people like Sean Hannity and others on the right," Scarborough said. "Really? Would we like to go across college campuses in America and tell all white boys that if they have marijuana in their system they are fair game?"

"In 2013, Sean, come on," Scarborough later said. "Whatever excuse there is to say this young black man had it coming to him, that is the defense because there is no defense for shooting down a young black man in a middle-class neighborhood with Skittles."

For the record, Hannity had Scarborough's ratings right: Last week, Morning Joe averaged almost exactly 400,000 viewers. But to say the show is failing misses what Morning Joe is about. While it does not achieve Fox & Friends-level ratings (averaging over 1 million last week), it does have significant influence among the very Washington insiders and political junkies who, according to Hannity, use Scarborough as a prop.